Laura Hage
Asociacion Casa Alianza (Guatemala City, Guatemala)
My summer was spent volunteering with Casa Alianza's Legal Programme in Guatemala City. The New York City based organization's mandate is to protect, defend and enforce children's rights. In Guatemala, they run three residence facilities (one for boys, one for girls and one for young mothers) to provide support to minors who call the city streets their home, come from broken families, are recovering from a substance dependency, have children or have been maltreated or sexually abused. I chose to intern with Casa Alianza because their name had come recommended to me by individuals in the human rights field as a well established and reputable organization. They also have a formal volunteer programme in place and are used to welcoming foreigners to their offices.
Throughout my term, I conducted research on the topic of Commercial Sexual Exploitation by studying specifically what the organization has done over the past year-and-a-half to address the issue. Although I learned a great deal about the subject (mainly from reading rather depressing studies on the staggering levels of corruption, abuse and impunity in the country), 3 months wasnot sufficient time to feel that I was fully contributing to the organization.
Working in Spanish was both demanding and gratifying as I had to familiarize myself with specific legal terms as well as the street slang used by the kids in the residences. However, the biggest challenge was adjusting to the different work environment and mentality. Coming from former government jobs where I didn't think twice about raiding the office supply cabinet or printing off large documents, it was quite a change to have to take your own paper to the prehistoric photocopier and keep track of your assigned pen. All part of the experience of volunteering with an NGO where the dominating theme is money - and lack thereof. The Legal team was unbelievably busy and, as the foreign volunteer familiarizing herself with the language and local legal regime, I didn’t always feel directly implicated or involved. It made for some rather long work days. In order to productively occupy my time, I took the initiative to update the residents’ printed data into an Excel document and quickly learned that my minimal and basic computer skillswere of far greater value then any first-year law school knowledge.
The few drawbacks aside, I had the opportunity to interact and work with a group of dedicated and exceptional people, as well as live several experiences that made my internship worthwhile and unforgettable. One of the highlights was participating in a few of Casa Alianza's interventions (operativos). The organization regularly collaborates with officials from Immigration, the National Police and the Office of Crimes Against Women to raid bars, dance halls and massage parlours looking for minors who are being sexually exploited. Such interventions often result in Immigration rounding up illegal workers from neighbouring Central American countries (with more than one reported case of no minors being located on site once the owner of he establishment was tipped off by a government official). The June 16 outing however resulted in bringing 3 minors into our custody: 2 fourteen year olds (including one trafficked Honduran) and one 17 year old. What's most frustrating is that under the current law the bar owners get off by simply paying a minimal fine (equivalent to US$150). An amount quickly reimbursed by overworking the remaining female employees. So if my time taught me anything from a legal aspect it's that written laws are one thing, enforcement (and more importantly lack thereof) is a whole other topic.
My time in Guatemalawas not exclusively "law" related. The country may be small in size but its landscape is varied and its indigenous culture rich. I took full advantage of long weekends over my extended internship stay to take in the sites. From black sand beaches, to hiking active volcanoes, to trekking through lush jungle and scrambling up Mayan ruins, I covered off most of the guidebook highlights. One dreary week of living in a gated and guarded housing complex near work convinced me to move to the neighbouring colonial UNESCO town of La Antigua. The 40-min commute on a chicken buswas a daily life-insurance gamble but worth the risk in order to live in a safer, livelier town rather than in the country's capital - famed for being the most violent and dangerous in theregion.
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